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To: investorgal who wrote (1629)	3/3/1998 9:09:00 PM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3033

I'm not sure why the Illustra/Informix situation has anything to do with this except for the fact that it was also an acquisition. I am somewhat familiar with this story though was not involved at the time. My understanding is that Illustra did a great sales job on Phil White convincing him that by buying Illustra for $300M they could build a product that combined the best of both Illustra and IFMX thus leapfrogging orcl. My understanding is that the plan was to release this new product within 12 - 18 months. I also believe that at the time Illustra had maybe 20 customers with a cumulative revenue of less than $10M yet Phil White felt it was worth the $300M he paid. This was obviously a bad decision and filled with major problems which were not discovered for some time. Quite frankly I don't think much of Phil White and am not surprised that the execution was poor. The decision itself was poor. Wasn't this intended to be a merger of two distinctly different technologies vs. two different applications which rely on an underlying technology. I just see this as two very different issues and if you disagree would appreciate any input you can offer. With respect to structuring the deal the same way financially as the Illustra deal, I'm not sure what that means. That was a stock deal..this is a stock deal. But that seems like the most common way these things are done. Is there something more to this deal that makes it different. Obviously the Illustra employees did not make out well since the execution was so poor. Hopefully this will be better. I agree that the cultures are distinctly different and that will be one of the most difficult issues to overcome. However, as someone from scopus recently said, they(sebl) work 8 to 5 or later. We are used to working when we want to. They have rules..we have none. Maybe a few rules won't damage things that much. Hopefully everyone will be able to adapt to the new culture. From what I have heard, the news is being received positively within scopus except for the obvious jitters which occur in these types of situations. In any case, I believe they are planning to leave the scopus group headquartered in Emeryville for at least the next year so hopefully this cultural shock can be absorbed gradually. I would be very surprised to see the scopus salesforce distracted for very long. I would think they will quickly get on the train or get off. But I have to believe that with Tom Siebel's background his primary focus is keeping the salesforce focused. In any case, salespeople adapt quickly if they see the dollar signs. IMHO will probably be the first to adapt to the new culture. Melissa